Indy walks back through our door as `Crystal Skull' nears

LOS ANGELES — Marion Ravenwood might have been speaking for us all when she set eyes on Indiana Jones for the first time in years.

Her greeting to the archaeologist-adventurer in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark": "Indiana Jones. I always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door."

It's been 19 years since Indy literally rode off into the sunset in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," but like Marion, could anyone doubt that the world's most famous tomb raider would come back into our lives one day?

For 27 years, Indy has stood as one of cinema's ultimate Everyman heroes, a poster boy for the idea that there are some good men you can never, ever keep down.

"He's a real guy. He's just like us," said George Lucas, who dreamed up the character and re-teams with director Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford as Indy for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," due out May 22.

Resurrecting Indy took more than a decade of debate, disagreement and compromise among the film's three principals.

Though the filmmakers have been tightlipped on the plot, the era — 1957 instead of the 1930s — and the trailer's image of a crate marked "Roswell, New Mexico, 1947," imply aliens are involved.

Fan buzz online has been intense. On IMDB.com, the Internet Movie Database, a post from a user called zac2347 chides fans for claiming "Crystal Skull" is the summer's most-anticipated movie, insisting it "looks like a  have elevated it above Indy.

Responds another poster, indyjones32: "Three trailers vs. 20 years of wait, disappointment and build-up. My money is on the 20 years."

Lucas went through years of grousing and second-guessing by fans who picked apart his "Star Wars" prequels. He expects the same on "Crystal Skull," saying it's impossible to satisfy hardcore fans.

"Whenever you do a film like this, people expect the Second Coming, and that's not what it is. So fans all get grumpy, the critics are already grumpy," Lucas said. "If you're going to say, `I'm going to get my Academy Award this year and finally I'm going to be loved by all the critics, and the fans are just going to go crazy' — not going to happen."

"So you only do it because it's a fun experience to do, and we love the movies," Lucas said. "We're doing it primarily because we want to see it. I want to see it, Steven wants to see it, Harrison wants to see it."